26 April 2013

When we hear the word refinery, we immediately associate this with smokestacks and the chemical industry. A refinery is in fact nothing more than a factory equipped with a fractional distillation column that separates the various compounds out of the oil, in order to enable these to be processed into industrial platform chemicals.

25 April 2013

On Thursday 18 and Friday 19 April, BiomimicryNL gave an introductory workshop at Saxion University of Applied Sciences. Biomimicry is a new science that studies nature and translates the designs and processes found there into innovation and development directions. The key question in biomimicry when confronting a problem is: how would nature solve this?

19 April 2013

Urogyn, a young and innovative company in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, has developed a product offering a solution to urinary stress incontinence that can also be used to perform sterilizations in women. Last Wednesday, the first stress incontinence patients to receive this therapy were successfully treated in HagaZiekenhuis in The Hague.

11 April 2013

The plastic ‘soup’ - the huge patches of plastics garbage that pollute the oceans - is a huge threat for the world’s marine life. Plastic soup is found in two major areas between America and Asia, where the Gulf Stream currents have trapped vast amounts of plastic debris. This plastic soup is caused by the fact that we are using increasing...

3 April 2013

The field of plastic electronics is currently developing at an unprecedented pace. Plastic electronic components are already being applied in packaging and apparel. Plastic diodes, transistors and memory cells are also becoming increasingly available. The latter, however, had long proved to be complicated and expensive to make. Up to now, there was also the...

28 March 2013

Everyone is familiar with Dyson’s bagless vacuum cleaners. But Dyson has also developed a range of other products as well, including a bladeless tower fan. Now, a company called Exhale Fans has taken the bladeless concept a step further, developing a ceiling fan that has revolutionized the design of this venerable icon.

25 March 2013

Sensor and controller manufacturer Sensata Technologies has developed a new, premium Differential Pressure Sensor (DPS). These sensors are used in cars to regulate exhaust gas emissions. Without these sensors, today’s exhaust systems can no longer function properly.

15 March 2013

“Good News from the Netherlands” is a collection of 50 inspiring innovations, which, in what has now become a biannual tradition, have been carefully reviewed and selected for publication by PDMA.NL. Every two years, PDMA.NL scours the market for novel developments and innovations in the Netherlands, picking 50 of the best for inclusion in their...

4 March 2013

We are pleased to announce that two new interns, Christiaan Hekking and Nikki Kemper, joined the team in Enschede at the end of February.

28 February 2013

The Perpetual Plastic Project shows you just how easy it is to make a ring out of a cup. The project, which is actually complete recycling unit, can wash, shred and extrude used plastic, which can subsequently serve as material 3D printing material.

28 February 2013

One designer, one customer, and one problem: that’s what Fixperts is about. It’s a new model to show just how creative and social the design field is. No marketers, accountants, brand identities or mission statements that get in the way of functional design, only a designer who connecting directly with the target group.

25 February 2013

Today’s business climate requires companies to think on their feet and to practice efficient management. On all fronts, but especially with regard to packaging, from positioning a product in the market and communicating the right product values to realizing a higher output. Packaging touches on all business activities across the board. Jos Oostendorp, a...

8 February 2013

The first People Creating Value network meeting of 2013 offered abundant opportunity to share interesting information about new projects, market research, the plans for 2013 and to take a quick look back at the year 2012. On Friday, 8 February, at 10 am, the meeting opened with a round of self-introductions by all participants. A number of new network partners...

31 January 2013

Another five years. And then we’ll be able to ‘milk’ algae to produce bioplastics. At least, that is the goal of SPLASH project, a 20-partner European project that is being led by Wageningen University. To this end, research is being carried out on the Botryococcus alga. This alga contains long carbon chains and polysaccharides that are ideal...

31 January 2013

Who doesn’t remember the scenes from Star Trek: “Tea, Earl grey, hot” and a steaming cup appears from nowhere. Now, researchers are well on the way to something similar, with the help of 3D printing.

21 January 2013

Admiring that beautiful coat in the store window, you are gripped by a feeling of uneasiness. Is there someone watching you? You look around, but there’s no one there.

18 January 2013

Keeping simple designs simple while remaining innovative is no easy feat to pull off. Last year, the humble button experienced a Eureka moment, with the addition of a simple groove on one side for holding an earphone cord. This time, it’s the French fries container. As any patron of a fast food restaurant will know, French fries come in containers with...

9 January 2013

California-based Solar Junction has developed a solar cell that achieves an efficiency of an incredible 44 percent, breaking the previous record set by this company in 2011. Founded in 2007, Solar Junction is a company that designs innovative solar panels. Their latest solar cells are able to convert sunlight to electricity at an efficiency of 44 percent.